What Began With Such a Promise
by smc-27
Summary: Just the ticking of the clock in the room, reminding him with each passing second that he wouldn't be getting any sleep. One word kept repeating in his mind. Don't. He kept thinking that she didn't really mean it. Lucas' POV on S1 BLP triangle. LP endgame


**A/N: **This is my 50th story. 50! That's insane. I simply write too much. I wanted to make 50 a little special, so I am posting this oneshot that I've been working on, literally, for months. It's just something I'd write pieces of here or there, which is totally not normal for me. Maybe that's why I'm nervous about it.

Basically, it's Lucas' POV on the BLP triangle set during S1. The one difference is the Nikki thing never happened, because let's face it, it shouldn't have.

The lyrics and title of this are Dave Barnes' song _When A Heart Breaks_. Really amazing song. I suggest you check it out.

**----**

_| No one ever told me  
It would come to this  
What began with such a promise  
Would end with such a twist |  
_

There was a brief period where he didn't know where she ended and he began.

Very brief.

She should have been his, and if he hadn't been such a fool, maybe she could have been. Maybe.

She used to finish his sentences. She was able to name his favourite songs before he ever told her, and she'd sit for hours in the quiet while he read. She didn't need to fill the silence with words just for the sake of speaking. Her silence spoke volumes.

And now the silence just reminds him of all he lost.

He had to remind himself sometimes that he didn't just loose one girl, he lost two. One hurt him more than the other, and he hurt one more than the other.

Well, it was easy to say that he hurt one more than the other, but he wasn't really sure.

Brooke was great. Fun and carefree. Sex and drinking and all the things he hadn't gotten to experience yet. She was his introduction to popularity and all that he'd have to face.

And he really thought he could fall for her. How naive.

And Peyton? Peyton was jaded and cynical. Friday nights with the new releases and sketching with the lights off and a candle burning. She was everything he'd always wanted in a girl. She was the girl he'd always wanted.

And he'd fallen for her years ago. How romantic.

He supposed he could have considered himself lucky that either girl ever gave him the time of day. Maybe he was one of the lucky few who ever got a glimpse into the real mind of Brooke Davis, or the true heart of Peyton Sawyer.

But when it was all gone, all he could think was that he was the unlucky fool who'd somehow messed up two perfectly great relationships within moments of one another.

It was a tangled web of lies and true feelings and secrets and hope. That web shone beautifully from afar, looking perfect from a distance. A boy, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's best friend.

But somewhere along the way, he forgot who was who.

_| I lean into the whisper  
But I don't hear a thing |  
_

The moment it all changed.

A simple concept, but hard to pinpoint.

His first practice? His first game? His first conversation with Peyton? His easy flirtation with Brooke?

Maybe all of it. Maybe everything. Maybe everything changed so much, so quickly, so often, that it was hard to remember who he was among it all.

He was no longer a bookworm with a simple life and a few close friends. He was now Dan Scott's son and the second best player on the team. Brooke's latest conquest, and the boy everyone saw Peyton speaking to after she and Nathan broke up.

He admittedly got caught up in it. A few parties, a few sidelong glances with a brunette or a blonde, a few game changing shots.

Brooke leaned forward - topless in the back seat of his mother's car - and whispered those words in his ear.

And all he saw was that blonde girl exiting the gym and rummaging through her bag for her keys.

Maybe that was the moment it all changed.

Maybe that moment should have been a warning.

_| It's a tear in the dark  
All alone in the car  
In pieces, in pieces  
It's the sound of mistake  
As I lie here awake  
Sleepless, sleepless |  
_

He started finding it hard to sleep. It wasn't because his shoulder was still tender, or any other superficial wounds were plaguing him.

He found himself reliving all those moments that could have - maybe should have - played out differently. First kisses that should have been relished and prolonged, and ones that shouldn't have ever happened. Words he should have said, and ones he shouldn't have. Throwing punches to defend one girl, then staying up all night talking to another. His first time with a girl he knew in his heart wasn't the one.

He lay in his bed with his covers up to his chin, thinking of blonde curls in a black dress, kissing down his chest for every button of his shirt undone. Thinking of hurried kisses in a hotel rooms after crisis, and realizing that he always wanted to be the one who was there for her. Telling her it was OK and really believing it. The feeling in his heart when she told him it meant something.

He'd relive those kisses and those words they said, and he'd smile before realizing that they were all in the past, and that all his own mistakes made it that way.

He'd think about Brooke, too, but not in the same way. He'd think of how much he'd hurt her and led her on, simply because he'd been stupid enough to take Peyton's mixed signals as rejection and moved on too fast, before she could explain herself.

He thought back to that night. _The_ night. Peyton standing in his bedroom door telling him everything he wanted to hear and using the words he'd said; saying them back to him in that soft, vulnerable tone that he wasn't sure he'd ever really get to hear again.

And maybe three hearts were broken that night when she walked back out the door.

But he'd stayed with Brooke. He felt he owed it to her to see what they could be. In his young heart and mind, that made sense for a while. It made sense to give it a shot with a perfectly wonderful girl who, even if a little brazen, was a sweetheart with a gentle touch.

And yet his thoughts and gaze would wander to another girl entirely. A girl whose touch still burned his skin and whose heart was now closed off again. A girl who would fake a smile and pretend it wasn't killing her to be around him.

And now he had neither, and the sleep wouldn't come, and he'd be plagued by his thoughts, wondering if he was just never really good enough for either of them.

_| This is the sound that made  
When a heart breaks |  
_

The steady thud of the ball against the asphalt seemed to sooth him. It always had. Everything could be falling apart around him, but he'd have basketball. He'd have the River Court and the knowledge that he could lose himself in his one true talent. The only thing he ever really knew, long before girls and varsity and popularity.

Long before broken hearts - his or anyone else's.

But as he tossed up shot after shot, he heard the ball bounce off the rim or the backboard. Routine moves he could always make, he'd trip over his feet. He'd lost his stride.

Sure, he could blame it on the accident and his long hiatus from the game as he rehabilitated his admittedly still-tender shoulder. But he knew it wasn't that.

And each time he sent the ball through the air, and it would bounce off the rim with that unmistakable clatter and the ringing of the chains that was so different from the sound made when the ball went in, he had to wonder.

He had to wonder if that very noise was the sound of his own broken heart.

_| Everybody's laughing  
Maybe that's just me  
Does something unrequited  
Mean it will never be |  
_

At school, he didn't sit with the popular kids anymore. He didn't sit with Haley, since she was with Nathan. And where Nathan was, either Brooke or Peyton were. It was almost as though they had scheduled their time with the younger Scott brother around each other. Lucas almost had to feel bad for Nathan, caught in the middle of the situation and trying to help both girls without really knowing what to do.

He'd see Nathan laughing with Brooke while Haley shook her head, or he'd see Peyton and Haley talking animatedly - no doubt about music - while Nathan sat oblivious.

And Lucas wanted to be part of that conversation.

He wanted those passionate talks with Peyton about music and art and nothing and everything. Or he wanted the silence they always seemed to be able to exist within. Hands barely touching, but feeling everything the other had to offer.

It almost seemed like a lifetime ago, when really, it was only mere weeks. And it seemed, somehow, sometimes, like he had that forever. Those moments with her where she'd let him see her. But his time with her had been fleeting and secret, and then it was gone completely.

And any time he'd see her, he'd see that same look in her eyes that he assumed was in his. Confusion and fear and regret, and the feeling that they weren't really over.

That maybe they never really started.

And maybe what he saw most - in himself and in her - was the nagging feeling that they never really would start.

But he didn't know how to put that all into words, so he'd bury himself in whatever book he was reading, and try to tell himself that he actually enjoyed the never-ending, self-induced solitude.

_| I lean into the whisper  
But I don't hear a thing |  
_

He would always walk through the front door, never through his bedroom door. His bedroom door and the steps right outside just represented too many bad memories. Too many things that shouldn't have happened.

Those steps were where Peyton had walked away with tears in her eyes, leaving him with tears in his. She'd walked to his house, and he'd tried to smile, but he knew there was something wrong. She went on to explain that they couldn't be together, and that she couldn't hurt Brooke any more than she already had.

And he really wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe it was for the best.

He just didn't.

She leaned in to hug him, and she pressed her cheek to his, and he fully expected her to say something more.

But she didn't say a word. She didn't whisper that it was OK, or tell him not to worry, or say the word 'someday' like he was hoping she might.

She simply kissed his cheek and let her breath hit his skin as she let out a sigh.

And that felt a lot like goodbye.

_| It's a tear in the dark  
All alone in the car  
In pieces, in pieces  
It's the sound of mistake  
As I lie here awake  
Sleepless, sleepless  
This is the sound that made  
When a heart breaks |  
_

He went to her house one night, somewhere in between wearing a sling on his arm and being fit to take part in practice again. It was stupid and he knew it. He _knew_ it.

But pretty much everything he'd done with Peyton had been stupid, and that had never stopped him before. Stolen moments in cars or hotels or libraries or empty hallways.

And he couldn't fucking let go of those moments. He couldn't. Those moments when she was his and his alone. Moments when she'd look at him in an honest way and he'd know she'd never looked at anyone like that before. Moments where he was the one for her, and she was the one for him, and neither of them would question it, because it was just _there_, and it was just _right_, and there was just nothing _to_ question.

Lucas and Peyton.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

They didn't have those moments anymore, and he hated it. He hated that she looked at him, eyes glazed over and numb. He hated that she'd breeze past him in the hall without so much as a word. It was all his fault, and he still hated it.

"Hi," he said when she opened the door.

"Luke..."

She was already biting back tears, and he kind of loved that he could still effect her. He didn't want her to cry, but he wanted her to _feel_. He wanted her to be hurting as much as he was, just so he would know that she still wanted him like he wanted her.

"I...I don't know." He shook his head.

He really didn't know.

He didn't know what to say, or why he was there. He didn't know why he was wearing just a tee shirt, though the weather was far too cold for it. He didn't know why he'd left his house and told his mother he was going to the River Court, but he wasn't even carrying his ball.

But he knew exactly why the sight of her in just her pajama pants and a tank top was making his heart beat against his ribcage and making him want to cry over what a fool he'd been.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked almost desperately.

And it hit him again that he'd broken her even more.

He didn't know how he'd ever be able to look at himself in a mirror again.

"I think I need you," he whispered, willing himself to hold it together. Just hold it together, you fool! Just another couple minutes. Just stare at her for a couple more minutes, then you can go and break down on your own.

Not in front of Peyton. Never in front of Peyton.

"It's too hard," she said, looking downward.

It killed him to not be able to reach out and tuck that one curl behind her ear.

He was so desperately in love with her that it was almost full circle. He almost hated her for it.

"Don't," she said.

It was all she would say, and he knew it.

Don't. One word, and so many meanings.

Don't do this. Don't want me. Don't need me. I don't want to need you. But I _do_ need you. Don't show up at my door in the tee shirt you wore the first time we spoke.

Don't remind me of all the things we could have, but don't have.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know."

And then she closed the door.

He was still ashamed to admit that he cried all the way home. God, he was a fool for that girl. He was an idiot, and he'd messed everything up, and he hated himself for it.

Another sleepless night. Just the ticking of the clock in the room, reminding him with each passing second that he wasn't going to be getting any sleep.

Reminding him with each passing second that his broken heart was his own doing.

That one word kept repeating in his mind. _Don't_.

And he kept thinking that she didn't really mean it.

_| Please don't leave me here  
Life, for now, I've come to fear  
You've dropped me off and left me here  
With nothing here to find my way __  
But the lights you take as you pull away |  
_

The last person he expected to see at the River Court at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night - well, Saturday morning - was Peyton.

But God, was he glad to see her.

She was in jeans and an old sweater he recognized was one of Nathan's, and he clenched his fist and dribbled the ball a little harder at that realization.

She shouldn't be wearing Nathan's sweater. She should be wearing _his_ sweater. She should be there because he invited her, and she was waiting for him to. She should cheer on his baskets and look at him apologetically when he missed.

But she now just drove up and stopped because, he was sure, she'd just seen him playing as she was driving past, and she'd know that if she didn't stop, it would hurt him too much.

But it all hurt him. All of it.

"Hey," she said, walking onto the tarmac with her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans, just like she always did.

"Hi," he said absently. He was doing his best impression of a guy who didn't care, but he was failing.

Miserably.

"You look like hell," she mused. She watched as he sunk another basket, and she thought she did a pretty good job of hiding her smile.

"You look amazing," he said, freezing the ball at his hip and standing still, 10 feet from her.

Her next smile was one she couldn't hide.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Can't sleep," she said with a shrug. "I went to Theresa's party, but...I dunno. Just not in a party mood, I guess."

"I know what you mean," he mumbled, taking the ball in his hands again and sending up a shot. He could feel her eyes on him, though, and he missed.

And he missed _her_. She was standing right there, but it wasn't like it used to be. It wasn't effortless conversation and standing close just to be close. It wasn't simple silence, it was heavy silence. It was silence weighed down with all the things that neither of them had the nerve to say.

"Next game, huh?" she asked, referring to when he'd be back with the team.

"Apparently," he said. "I still suck, though."

"Same as before, then," she teased, and he scowled at her. "Sorry. Joke."

"No," he said, shaking his head as he let the ball roll to the edge of the court. "Sorry."

He took a few steps towards her, and he stood in front of her, staring at the ground.

"I don't want it to be like this," she said desperately, dropping her hands at her side.

"Me neither," he said. She looked at him and almost smiled. "But you broke it off."

Her almost smile turned into a frown, and he thought he saw her bite her lip to keep herself from crying.

He really didn't know what it was that made him act like such a jerk around her.

"Sorry," he said.

"No. You're right," she whispered. "And...I wish...God, I wish I could say that was a mistake."

His broken heart would never heal, he was sure of it.

"But Brooke and I..."

"Aren't talking."

"But we will," she stated confidently. "I need her, Luke."

"I know," he conceded, nodding his head as he averted her gaze. He just couldn't look into her green eyes without feeling like nothing else mattered but the two of them.

Maybe it didn't matter where he looked. Maybe he'd always feel that way.

"I shouldn't have come," she said. She pulled her keys from her pocket and turned to walk to her car.

He grabbed her elbow so hard that she looked at him like he was crazy, and when he pulled her towards him, he could see the faint outline of his fingers on her flesh. He didn't care.

He kissed her. She placed her palm on his beating heart, and she moaned in surprised.

But she kissed him back.

"Luke," she whined once she'd pulled away. "Don't make this harder."

"Because it's so easy?" he asked quietly, sarcasm dripping from his every word.

"It's not easy at all," she said, shaking her head. "I just can't...with you, and then...I can't."

"I know," he said, looking back up at her.

He wanted to kiss her again, and she wanted to kiss him again, but neither could say that.

So she just waved at him, her key ring looped around the ring finger on her left hand, and he felt a pang in his heart. There was a future moment in his life that he'd never get to experience centered around that particular finger.

And it was all his own fault.

He was just barely 17. He shouldn't have been thinking about those things. Rings and proposals and marriage. But he was. And he only ever thought of those things with Peyton. Never anyone else.

She walked away, and then she drove away, and he stood there, completely still on the asphalt with his basketball sitting 50 feet to his right, until he couldn't see her taillights any longer.

It was darker, somehow, now that she wasn't there.

He missed every shot he aimed for after that.

He walked home in utter darkness.

_Everything_ seemed a little darker.

_| Far ahead the brush is moving  
There's others here and good is proving  
Nothing's wrong, it's in my mind  
Nothing's wrong and I'll be fine |  
_

His first game back, he played only 13 minutes. Just shy, actually. But they were 13 damn good minutes, that had even Nathan patting him on the back.

And Peyton smiled.

That was all the reassurance he needed that he'd played a decent game.

It was a flurry of congratulations and fans on the court, and teammates lauding him for hitting the winning shot. And somewhere in that time, she disappeared into the crowd and he couldn't see her any longer.

It was fairly symbolic, he thought.

They went to the same party that night, and she caught him staring a couple times, and just like before, when they didn't really know each other, he'd turn away quickly, and she'd pretend she didn't see him. But they were both very aware that he was looking, and they were both very aware that he wouldn't apologize for it, and that she didn't really need him to.

She stepped onto the back porch of Nathan's beach house sometime after her fourth beer, and she saw Lucas out there, no less than 100 feet away. He was sitting alone, perched atop the railing of the boardwalk that led down to the surf, sipping from a bottle of water.

He was such a good boy, she thought fondly. Never really one to drink, and never one to buy into the party scene. Never one to drink four beers then need to escape the confines of of 4,000 square foot house, just because it felt too small.

Never really like her. She wondered why he ever wanted her in the first place.

But he was like her, she thought. He was.

The wind blew his tee shirt and his hair, and he was so gorgeous that she started to cry.

Nathan stepped out behind her moments later, and, always unable to really deal with a crying girl, he looked like he might just run back inside. Her eyes met his and he looked at her with something that looked vaguely like sympathy.

"Sorry," he said.

That was a loaded word, coming from Nathan Scott.

For once, though, he wasn't apologizing for himself, not really. He may have been apologizing for stepping outside at the very moment she was breaking down, but it was more than that. She felt like maybe he was apologizing for his brother, too. For things he had no control over. She felt like that meant a lot.

"Yeah." She let out a bitter laugh and wiped her cheeks. "Me too."

"You OK?"

"Yeah," she lied. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," he said delicately.

Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she looked back to that blonde boy, and that time, he was looking back at her.

"I'm not," she admitted, for the first time, really. She cried a little harder and bit back a sob, and Nathan squeezed her shoulder.

"Come on," he said. "I'll take you home."

For all the heartache Nathan used to cause her, she was sure he was the only one who really understood what she was going through, and she didn't know why that was. She was thankful for it, though.

"Thanks," she said with a nod.

Nathan draped his arm loosely around her shoulder and made a comment about it being nice that he wasn't the one making her cry, and she laughed a teary laugh.

They walked down the steps and around the house so she wouldn't have to walk through the crowd and face questions about her tears later.

She felt Lucas' eyes on her the whole way.

_| It's a tear in the dark  
All alone in the car  
In pieces, in pieces  
It's the sound of mistake  
As I lie here awake  
Sleepless, sleepless |  
_

He lay awake, weeks after the basketball season ended, and long after he and Peyton's evening - and last kiss - at the River Court.

And still, all he could think about was her.

It was nothing new, really. It was just something he had to live with. Like people who lived with illness or pain or hurt on a day-to-day basis. He was now one of them. The heartache wouldn't go away, and if he was being honest, he wasn't sure he wanted it to.

It just reminded him of the time when he had her, and maybe it was torture to relive it all, but he'd never been happier than he'd been with her, and if even if it meant that he never slept another wink, he'd still relive all those times with her.

He was staring at the ceiling, one hand behind his head and one resting on his chest, when he heard someone turn the doorknob and step into the room.

She didn't say a word. She just crossed the room, kicked off her shoes, and sat on his bed with one leg tucked beneath her.

This time, she was wearing _his_ sweater.

He thought that had to stand for something.

"I can't sleep," she said, and he reached out for her hand.

He opened his arm to her, and she lay down next to him, and he didn't care that his mother would kill him if she knew there was a girl in his bed. He didn't care that Brooke and Peyton's friendship was already fragile, at best. He didn't care that he had no idea how she'd gotten to his house in the middle of the night. He didn't care that they had to talk about a lot, and that one night didn't really mean much of anything.

She couldn't sleep, and he couldn't sleep, and he knew somehow that it was all for the same reasons.

So he pulled her close, and he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, and he let the seconds on the clock tick away. Somewhere in the night, he fell asleep. It wasn't lost on him that it was just shortly after her felt her drift off, breathing steadily in his arms.

When he woke up in the morning she was gone. But it didn't matter as much as maybe it should have. He knew she'd come back. There was a note, scrawled on an index card, sitting on the bedside table with two simple words. _Thank you_.

And he'd _slept_. For what felt like the first time in ages.

**----**


End file.
